Paradigm: Volume One is a Nook Book!

Just a quick note to say that an anthology containing one of my older (but still a favorite) stories  is now available as an e-book, exclusively (as far as I can tell) from Barnes & Noble. It is "Hard Winter," a darkly comedic Beaver Island story with only a couple of survivors. All characters are wholly invented, and any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental, just so you know.

It's here! My story, "The Dubious Apotheosis of Baskin Gough," along with 20 other great stories are available in one creepy package known as ARCANE II.. Check out the e-book at Amazon,, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. The Print edition will be out soon for those of you who, like me, prefer that inky pulpy smell to the ambient glow of a screen. Help spread the word to anyone who you think might dig it. Cheers!

Cover Art for Arcane II Revealed!

Take a look at this amazing image by French artist, Nihil.
Look closely. Blow it up to full size. Soak it in. 

“Le grand ordonnateur”

Let it inhabit your brain a bit.

But not too much--it's pretty damn creepy.

I am thrilled to say that this fine image will reportedly be gracing the cover of Arcane II, the much anticipated second volume in the Arcane Anthology series, edited by Nathan Shumate and published by Cold Fusion Media. “Le grand ordonnateur” apparently translates to "the great architect," or "the main organizer." Both evocative, though I prefer the former. Props to Nathan for his impeccable taste, and to the artist for his unique vision.

Of course, my story "The Dubious Apotheosis of Baskin Gough" will be appearing in Arcane II, so I have particular reason to be excited.

I have always been of the firm opinion that, even when readers know better, cover art can have a huge impact on sales. How many good books have I passed on again and again because of the cover art, only to be surprised when I actually did pick them up at the quality to be found between the covers? Likewise, I've bought more books than I can recall that were great right up until I actually got down to the reading. But not to worry. With all due modesty, I have complete faith that the stories in Arcane II will live up to such a wickedly alluring cover.


On a related note, here is a complete list of the

stories that will be appearing in Arcane II:

Jean Graham, “Nightcrawlers”

Nicole M. Taylor, “The Pianist’s Wife”

Suzanne Sykora, “Palace of Rats”

Michael R. Fletcher, “Fire and Flesh”

Steve Toase, “Fate’s Mask”

Miranda Ciccone, “Orpheus and Eurydice”

Joanna Parypinski, “Lakeshore Drive”

Harry Markov, “Hurricane Drunk”

Brooke Miller, “The Last Laugh”

Gef Fox, “Tree Hugger”

Philip Roberts, “90 Day Notice”

Libby Cudmore and Matthew Quinn Martin, “Convention of Ekphrasis”

Michael Haynes, “In the Paint”

Milo James Fowler, “Beneath the Surface”

Andrew Bourelle, “What It Means to Love”

Priya Sharma, “The Beatification of Thomas Small”

Craig Pay, “His City”

Patrick McGinnity, “The Dubious Apotheosis of Baskin Gough

Adele Gardner, “Triptych”

Eric Dimbleby, “The House That Wept Puddin’”

Be on the lookout for the e-book in Mid-January, and the print version not long after. Of course, I'll keep you updated, so check back often.

Why I have to remember to check out Locus more often -- or Black Gate is back!

I used to have a subscription to Locus Magazine, which bills itself as "The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field" and is, in fact, the premiere news source for anyone interested in the business/writing end of the speculative fiction field. It was a Christmas gift from my wonderful mother-in-law/drinking buddy (when my wife was pregnant the first time, her mother, who we lived with, valiantly stepped in to keep me from having to drink alone). Anyway, long story short, the subscription expired, and I have yet to pony up the cash for another. And boy, do I miss it.

Luckily, Locus also happens to have a really cool and useful website, so one would think that I could stay up-to-date on who's doing what. Except I forget to check it, and important things slip by me. One of those is the super exciting news that Black Gate has reentered the field with an online fiction offering once a week or so. Let me just say, that is awesome news! Best of luck to John O'Neill and the rest of the crew--I'll be reading.

I have loved Black Gate since its inception as a beefy print magazine packed with adventure fantasy, articles, a comic strip, and much more. I have nearly every issue. I even have one really encouraging rejection from John O'Neill from years ago, and I regret not having submitted more to them back then. Black Gate has long been one of the magazines I really want to see my work in, and I even have a quartet of linked stories I started writing with this particular market in mind. The problem is they have been closed to submissions for some time. They have a very active and interesting blog, but the most recent print issue was Spring 2011, and for a while now I have been dreading the announcement that they were closing for good, like so many other good magazines have done (RIP Realms of Fantasy). I've been periodically checking their submissions guidelines for a change, but missed the big news in their blog that they are publishing fiction again. True, they are still closed to submissions, but once the backlog of stories they have already purchased clears, it sounds like they will be reopening.

I guess that means I'd better get cracking on finishing up the quartet (#1 is mostly drafted, #2 is completely drafted, #3 is mostly drafted, while #4 exists only in my mind). Ah, motivation is such a fine thing.

So get on over and check out Black Gate, and take a look at Locus while you're at it. I plan to review Black Gate's first online offering, Jason E. Thummel's "The Duelist," shortly, so be on the lookout for that. Until next time then.

Seth Dickinson's "Worth of Crows" at BCS

In my last post, I mentioned that I would be blogging more regularly. That was over a year ago. So, yeah, I dropped the ball a bit there. But lets let bygones be bygones. I just had to pop in here tonight to give a nod to an exceptionally fine story I just read.

Over at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Seth Dickinson's "Worth of Crows" is really, really worth checking out, well worth every penny (though the site is free to visit, they do pay their authors at professional rates). If you like really good fantasy fiction, and you've never been over to BCS, you owe it to yourself to check out their top-notch online mag.

The prose in Dickinson's story is impeccable--spare and yet beautiful all the same. The world the narrative takes place in is sketched so subtly that though the narrator doesn't tell us much about it at all, we feel like we know a lot anyway. Dickinson adheres admirably to the writers' axiom "Use all the best words, in the right order, without any unnecessary ones." It is one thing to pull that off when the setting is contemporary and you can assume a lot of shared reader knowledge, but to do it in a fantasy with a world as rich and unique as this is a triumph. Hats off to the author. Do yourself a favor and zip on over to BCS to give it a read. Till next time.

Publishing News

My most recent story, "Wit's Soul" can now be read on the exciting new online art and literature review, Ad-Hominem. Incidentally, Larissa is also the featured artist on Ad-Hominem right now, and some examples of her fine photography can be found there.

In addition, "Hard Winter," which may be my favorite of the stories I've written, is now available free of charge in a PDF version of Paradigm Volume One. It is dark story set on Beaver Island, and I apologize if anyone thinks they see themselves in it - it is purely coincidental. I did use mash-ups of real island names for flavor, but it was a random process. So if your see your first or last name on a character, rest assured, the character is nothing like you--it just means I like your name. I promise. On a side note, strangely enough, in the listing for Paradigm on the Poets and Writers magazine's markets page, I am listed as one of three "representative authors" for this journal, which I guess is a good thing, though I'm not entirely sure what it means.

Furthermore, my story, "Rumble Strip" can be found in the PDF version of Word River. This one is a bit racy, and so not for the faint of heart.

Thanks for reading!

The rebirth of the Novel?

I am always on the lookout for anything that articulates my own feelings about writing and reading better than I can articulate them myself. This evening, I came across this impressive and comprehensive article about plot and the novel (and more generally, in all fiction). I once wrote an application letter for a scholarship, in which I lamented the death of plot in contemporary literary fiction and vowed to commit my remaining years to righting that egregious wrong. I got the scholarship (thanks Ari!), but I still haven't made much in the way of progress. But luckily, I am not the only one working on the problem. I've never read a more unpretentious and straightforward assessment of the state of things in the biz than Lev Grossman's article for The Wall Street Journal. Grossman has, this blogger believes, hit the old nail squarely on the head. But don't take my word for it.

Check it out for yourself:

"Good Novels Don't Have to Be Hard"

Better Late Than Later

At long last, photographic proof of my reproductive capacity! I've been meaning to get a few photos up here for weeks now, so here they are. This is Lysander, who is now 5 weeks old, but was younger (and thinner) in these shots.

I've also been meaning to scratch together an interview for you all, but nothing is ready yet. I've also been working on a review to try and get my foot in the door over at The Greenman Review, but it has been slow going so far. Things at the Boat Dock have already gotten crazy, what with U.S. Independence Day coming up this week. Larissa and I are working at moving out of town this week, but as always, projects are taking me longer than I anticipated. The window is in, but I have to put everything back where it belongs (siding and such) before we can set up our bed in the loft again. I also want to install a railing of some sort to keep anyone from taking a header out of the loft in the middle of the night. Then comes some plumbing to get the sink ready for use. Oh, and we planted Lysander's tree a week or so ago, and the deer have already been nibbling on it, so I had to put up a little fence around it. Hopefully that will give it a chance to take hold. It has Lysander's placenta buried underneath it, so it would be a shame if it died (we could just plant another tree in the same hole, but still...). So today I'll be going back out there to get some more done, with the hope that we'll be sleeping in our own little place tonight for the first time this year.

So there it is. I haven't written much, nor have I done any work on the classes I'll be teaching in the fall, but as usual, I'm hoping that things will get better soon.

If nothing else, I can always play with the baby! Until next time then.